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Infodump
Compiling cultural background info on tribes is a complicated thing, as interpreting it requires holding several different factors in mind: 1) Every tribe is attached to its human kin in different ways - there is no greater or lesser degree of attachment, it just expresses itself in different ways. The outliers are the Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers who are composed almost exclusively of humans and Homids and the Red Talons who no longer associate with humans.. These groups are outliers in Garou society because they do not share a lupine heritage with human culture - they are exclusively one or the other. Thus they base much of their identities around things other than tradition: Talons identify exclusively with wolves and the Walkers and Gnawers draw their identities from existing human social structures. 2) Just as different cultures develop in unique ways, the traditions of the Garou that were born from them are shaped in response to them. Trying to understand a Garou Tribe is just like trying to understand an individual human ethnic group different from one's own. Applying even the most basic assumptions to another culture will leave one confused at the very least when said culture behaves in a way that seems completely antithetical to one's own expectations or even moral values. This lack of perspective, a cause of misinterpretation, mutual animosity and even war is one of the greatest IC causes of the Wars of Rage. These misunderstandings are what caused the Garou to war against the Fera and later fight amongst themselves on endless occasions. It's the root cause of Garou prejudices against one another, especially since the supernatural anger of the Garou clouds any attempts at discerning the other culture's underlying principles. So when you as a human who (hopefully) does not possess Rage tries to understand any of these human cultures, reserve your moral judgments until you really understand the context out of which the culture developed. Most importantly, don't assume anything! To learn about another culture is to become a child again, starting from scratch as best you can but understanding that there are some things from your own upbringing that you just won't be able to shake off. What does this mean? If your character was born in a modern culture that is not your own, your best bet is ethnography. It seems boring and hard to find at first glance, but trust me when I say that if it's out there, some grad student has written at least 100 pages on it. It rapidly becomes engaging, intriguing and sometimes downright funny. If it's a prehistoric or otherwise nonexistent culture, go for the archaeology first. In my opinion archaeology is pretty banal stuff until you begin to match it up with history, see what fits and what doesn't, and then you draw some fascinating conclusions. I'll be doing most of this myself though, so fear not! I'll post my sources up here if you want to check them out though. 3) Remember that this is a game. We can and do use the caveat that states "well it's magic so it must work that way". GMUSH is based off of a high degree of realism - characters simply work better are are more enjoyable to play if they are more developed and grounded in a solid identity. However, there are always going to be gaps in the records, things that aren't properly explained and remain mysteries. We the players of supernatural beings with long-reaching ancestral memories get a real thrill out of filling in those blanks with the monsters that creep in and out of the history books. Makes the game that much more profound. But we don't know most of this info conclusively and ultimately, it's still a game. Can't get too serious or it all just becomes silly - at some point you just have to say "because it's magic". So without further ado I will now compile as much info as I can about the cultural perspectives of each of the tribes who have their basis in a distinct human culture or ethnic group. My goal is to provide info on perspective, worldview, customs and general beliefs as I am able. My hope is that it will not only provide enrichment for character backgrounds but also help the Galliards of these tribes establish more firmly an identity and unique culture. The importance of this is manifold: without understanding the background a character comes from, boring stereotypes arise in their place and the player is left floundering as he tries to figure out what parts of the tradition his character might cleave to or break from. Also, it is the Galliard's auspice role to understand the roots of their tribe's culture at the very least, and impart their unique worldview onto new members of the tribe. Without any real knowledge of a character's roots in human culture this rapidly becomes an exercise in futility. This will take a long time and will be updated sporadically. I advise you, dear reader, to look away before I'm done compiling and formatting all the info in a manner that does not hurt the eyes to read. FIANNA Foreword Generally speaking, we can agree that the Tribe commonly known as Fianna today take their human Kin from the group the Mediterranean world called "keltoi" or Celts. While those people were shown to have had contact with the Greco-Roman world, the term "Celt" is generally known to be a gross generalization directed towards these people, who only really began to leave the Halstatt/La Tene cultural region in central Europe (modern Austria, Ukraine and Switzerland) to start spreading out with the development of iron tools and weapons. Humans had been living in Europe since the late Stone Age and a long-established history of migration, conflict, rise and fall of tribes, kingdoms and possibly neolithic empires of which we know nothing today. Of course since this is a fictional game we can go hog-wild with potential ancestral backgrounds, make up whole tribal groups and conflicts that humans don't remember today but the Fianna jealously keep. The world that history never explored is the world of the Garou. So make it your own!